Tuesday, May 15

One week from today, 5-22-12, Nashville becomes Nash-VILLAIN, as that group of mad science rockers the C.O.G. - aka The Consortium of Genius, invade music city. Dr. Gangrene will be on hand to host the event, and local rockers The Exotic Ones and Dirty Dee and the Sweaty Meat will rock the house too. Show starts at 8pm. Be there or die!!

Monday, May 14

Memphis Tennessee had more frightening figures in it's local legend than just a certain white leather clad rock musician fond of a certain soft blue pair of shoes - in the sixties and early seventies the Memphis airwaves were ruled by Sivad and his program, Fantastic Features!Sivad was played by Watson Davis, who got his host name by spelling Davis backward. One of the most popular local performers of his day, Sivad hosted two shows a week and appeared live at almost every type event imaginable - From county fairs to city parades, Sivad was there to spread ghoulish cheer and meet his adoring fans. Sivad, "Your Monster of Ceremonies, " was always dressed in undertaker garb with black cape and top hat, wearing heavy vampirish makeup and fake looking fangs.

(mask of Sivad available through fan club - thanks to Egor's Chamber of Horror Hosts for this pic)

Fantastic Features originally aired at 6pm, but later moved to 10:30, and a second show later was added at 11:30 on Saturdays.

click HEREto read a GREAT article by Harris Lentz for fantastic Features.Sivad also recorded a 45 record called Sivad Buries Rock and Roll.

Friday, May 11

I've added Joe Bob to this list of Nashville Horror Hosts
for one simple reason . . .
John Bloom is a graduate of Vanderbilt University!

That's right, John Bloom, BA'74, College of Arts and Science.
He actually won a sports writing scholarship, the Fred Russell-Grantland
Rice Scholarship at Vanderbilt, and served as managing editor
of the Hustler, Vanderbilt's campus magazine. He graduated Phi
Beta Kappa in 1974.
With a southern accent, quick wit , and unique sense of humor,
Joe Bob hosted drive in movies every Saturday night on TNT's
Monstervision. He regularly gave out what are probably the best
facts on movies offered by any horror host, focusing on behind
the scenes stories and production facts unknown to most viewers.

His most popular feature, besides Rusty the Mail Girl, was
probably his ratings section, where he listed the drive-in totals
of every movie, from the cheapest grade B flick to the highest
grossing films - if Joe Bob showed 'em, Joe Bob rated 'em, using
a scale that's all Joe Bob -

John Bloom has also had a very
active career outside of Monstervision. He was an award winning
investigative journalist, (even infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan
at one point), a film critic for the Dallas Times Herald,
and a movie host on The Movie Channel (where he won two ACE awards,
the highest award TMC gives) before starting Monstervision.

He is also an author of such
books as Iron Joe Bob, Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In, Joe Bob Goes Back to the Drive-In, A Guide to Western Civilization, or My Story, and The
Cosmic Wisdom of Joe Bob Briggs.

In addition he also wrote a true crime book called Evidence
of Love, co-authored by Jim Atkinson, that became the ABC
movie of the week Killing in a Small Town.

John Bloom has also appeared
in several movies. Click
hereto see a list of his films on
the Internet Movie Database.

Humphrey the Hunchback was played by actor Barry McAlister on Nashville's WNAB, Ch58. Barry's show ran for close to two years, from 1994 - 1996, until the station
eventually made the decision to pull all their local programming. I got the chance to talk to Barry and he described the show to me a bit:

"I did my show for about two years before
they decided to stop doing
any local production at all. The station put the word out that
they were
looking for someone to be host. At the time I had a manager for
my acting
endeavors and she knew right away the opportunity was for me!
I had created
the character of Humphry for a KT Oslin video a few years earlier
and I am
an Improvisational comedian. So I shot a tape at Two Rivers Mansion
and got
the gig!

I was all comedy based and mostly improvised. I had facts and
info.
about the actors, the director and the film, plus other works
the players
had done. But I improvised and did physical bits all around the
information. I never, ever got to see the films ahead of time.
I had a puppet of a small "creature" that I used off
and on. He
spoke in a garbled gibberish only I could understand (I did ventriloquism
with him). Then toward the end I had a puppeteer friend who brought
in with
his rat puppet. There was also a giant rubber spider named Renfield
that
"dropped" in now and then.

The budget was almost nothing, and we shot everything in weird
places. We couldn't use the studio (because they would have to
rent it from
Speer Communications) so we shot in their mechanical room a lot.
We did
cheat and get in a corner of a studio some. But the best stuff
we shot in
Fort Nashborough downtown. There was a giant trap door and everything!"

Monday, May 7

The Count of Five

Suspense Theater - Bob McGeheeWTVF CH5Nashville, TN 1977-1982

Haunting the airwaves in the late seventies was Suspense Theater, hosted by The Count of Five. The Count was, of course, a vampire, and he appeared, appropriately enough, on WTVF Ch5. He was played by Bob McGehee, who worked at the station at the time. He had a co-host named Goro, who was a shirt-less monster, played by Stan Hunter. The two would do bits in breaks between the movie they would show, usually either a horror show or a suspense movie of some type, such as Sherlock Holmes.

Friday, May 4

Evil Dead director Sam Raimi is suing to retain rights to the Evil Dead property. AWARD PICTURES had planned to make a sequel to the franchise, but Raimi and RENAISSANCE Pictures also plan to make their own sequel and the case is now in the US Courts to decide who owns the rights. It will be interesting to see how this fight turns out, and who, ultimately, will retain rights to continue the undead storyline.

For what it's worth, I hope Raimi and Renaissance retain rights and make their own sequel. It is, after all, their creation...

My good pal Scott Essman's 80th anniversary Frankenstein article is now available on google as an ebook. It features a beautiful digital illustration of the monster by artist extrordinaire Rick Baker, as well as a color illustration of the creature by Ray Spooky Santoleri. A well researched and written piece on one of the greatest monsters of the silver screen. Go get yours at:

Wednesday, May 2

Here's an awesome half-sheet from 1972 for the double bill of Daughters of Satan and Superbeast. Gotta love the advertising campaign - "A secret cult of lust craved witches torturing their victims with fire and desire" and "See a half-man half-monster ripping helpless victims to shreds in his mad hunger for human flesh."

Before starting his own venture into horror hosting Dr. Gangrene joined Sir Cecil's Ghoul Patrol, in 1974 in the Boy Scouts. It was part of his uniform then, and it is part of his uniform once again, on the mad doctor's lab coat!!

SIR CECIL CREAPE, aka THE PHANTOM OF THE OPRY was played by Russ McCown, and was perhaps Nashville's best known horror host. His show originated on WSMV, channel 4 Nashville, and was called Creature Feature. It aired on Saturday evenings, at 10:30pm and ran from 1971-1973. During that time Sir Cecil hosted a bevy of movies and always had lots of skits in between breaks. The set was a dungeon, with stone walls and fireplace which always had a picture of Floyd Kephart, local political analyst, on it.

In the 1980s Russ revived the character of Sir Cecil on a national stage on TNN, The Nashville Network, on cable TV. TNN would eventually become SpikeTV.

Tuesday, May 1

I went to see THE RAVEN this past weekend, starring John Cusack, and afterwards I kind of had mixed feelings about it. The sets and costumes all looked good but Cusack's performance as Poe was lacking. I must admit I am a bit jaded, however... after seeing the Jeffrey Combs one man play NEVERMORE, in which Combs channeled the poet so completely he all but disappeared, not many actors could match up to such an incredible performance.

No attempt was made on the part of this film to even try and make Cusack resemble Poe, makeup wise, other than tussling his hair a bit and adding a goatee - and even that seems off, as in every photograph or illustration of Poe I've ever seen he sports a mustache but no beard of any type. Cusack didn't attempt to affect a southern accent either. He was simply Cusack in a period piece with facial hair.

The story was exactly what I expected from the trailer but I felt they could have had the murders tie into the stories better in some cases. The first couple were good, but they missed out on some real opportunities later on. The film also takes major liberties with the character of Poe, and that was to be expected, although turning him into an action hero instead of an alcoholic poet suffering from mental health issues was a bit much. The ending of the story used a lame gimmick that was unnecessary and silly.

Overall not a bad movie, still enjoyable, but it fell well short of what could have been. Just imagine if they had cast Combs in this role, made it a mystery instead of action thriller, and had him truly battle his inner demons and alcoholism instead of merely paying lip service to these issues at the beginning of the film then tossing them aside for the conclusion. Three out of 5 skulls.